Azure bonds - Kate Novak [104]
"No. He's one of them! And I can prove it!" Akabar shouted, leaping toward the lizard with his dagger drawn.
Dragonbait could have responded by raising his sword and letting the mage skewer himself, but instead, he held his arms out to grapple with him. Akabar was no weakling, and the lizard discovered too late that the Turmishman would not be so easy to shove away. Akabar slashed at the lizard's shirt, ripping the ties so the garment fell open.
"Stop it!" Alias shouted. She dropped her sword and rushed forward to pry Akabar loose from the lizard. The two males shifted their weight, and Alias stumbled. All three fell toward the wall, but while Akabar's and Dragon-bait's shoulders hit the barrier with a thud, Alias's hand and wrist plunged right through the brick and mortar. Only the lizard's body kept her from falling in farther.
The bricks went transparent yet again and the hellish, blue light that filled the passage from the other side of the wall caused the sigils on her arm to perform an entirely new trick. They replicated miniature illusory copies of themselves which slipped from her flesh. The little daggers, rings, fanged palms, and the rest circled about her arm like angry hornets. Alias tried to pull her arm from the wall, but it was mired fast, just as her legs had been trapped by the crystal elemental. "No!" she screamed. "I'm stuck!"
Dragonbait, squished between her and the wall, let his sword drop and tried pushing her shoulders away.
"No good,'' Alias groaned. "You're pulling my arm from its socket."
Brought to a more reasonable state of mind by the new crisis, Akabar ceased struggling with the lizard. "How did you do that?' he asked, amazed at her ability to pass through the wall.
"It's not me, you stupid Turmite. It's the arm. That's why Dragonbait pushed me away from the wall. He must have known there was danger."
"He might have planned all this," Akabar insisted. "To help capture you. He's branded the same as you."
"Tell me something I don't know," Alias snarled. "Like how to get my arm out of this wall!"
"Try pushing forward a little and then jerking back," the mage suggested.
Alias pressed forward up to her elbow, covering all the sigils, but she could not pull back a fraction of an inch. "Great," she growled. "Now I'm stuck worse." Instinctively she put her foot up to the wall to use it as leverage to pull herself out, but the foot slipped through the brickwork as well, all the way to her knee.
"Any more bright ideas, Akash?"
Despite his awkward position, Dragonbait remained pressed against the wall, rather than risk losing Alias. Pulled closer to him, Alias could smell the scent of roses again, mixed with the odor of violets. Suddenly, it came to her-the rose smell always was present when he was sad. He was mourning her already. "Don't give up on me yet, chum," she whispered to him.
Dragonbait tried to smile, but it was meant for her benefit, not one he felt. She was in too much danger.
Akabar ran his fingers along the wall. He tapped on the brick and scratched at the mortar with his dagger. "This is the most unusual brick I've ever seen," he murmured. "But the grouting is common enough. Mortar mixed with gorgon blood, or something similar. It's used to block the passage of beasts that can walk through walls."
"Well, I can't walk through walls. Why isn't it stopping me?" Alias said through gritted teeth. Dots of perspiration formed at her brow.
"Precisely. It wasn't made to stop people. That's what the brick is for, I presume."
"The brick's not stopping me either!" Alias shouted. "Akabar, stop jabbering and do something!"
"All right, already." The mage ran nervous fingers through his hair. "I'm going to try to dispel the magic they must have cast on the wall while the mortar hardened. It was undoubtedly cast by a more powerful mage than I, but if the spell dates back as far as the destruction of the temple, it may have decayed some over the centuries."
"Cut the lecture. Just do it."
Akabar stepped back and spread his arms out so as to encompass the entire wall in his